A war erupts in the heart of Canada’s labour movement

Can Neil Sedaka bring together two of Canada’s most influential unions?

The world of organized labour was rocked last week when Canada’s largest private sector union, Unifor, broke away from the Canadian Labor Congress. It was sort of like Sonny and Cher calling it quits. The two labour institutions had climbed a lot of mountains together and got results — as with their united front against Stephen Harper in the 2015 election.

You remember Breaking Up is Hard to Do, right? Hum along with me now:

They say that breaking up is hard to do …
Don’t say that this is the end
Instead of breaking up I wish that we were making up again.

Last Friday, Unifor’s president Jerry Dias sent a text to his opposite number at the CLC, Hassan Yussuff. The private communication led to a brief meeting between the feuding union leaders.

“Yeah, I sent him a text after he sent me an email of Neil Sedaka’s Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. I laughed my ass off. We met, had a conversation … but look, there’s no way Unifor is going to surrender our democratic principles. We will not be part of any centralized labour organization or cartel that denies basic worker rights.”

For Dias that means workers — not union leaders sitting in Ottawa, Pittsburgh or Las Vegas — should choose the union that gets their dues.

Yussuff used the Sedaka-themed meeting to deliver a message of his own, about observing the rules and the process of engagement. In other words: stop raiding other unions.

“I did have a brief talk with Jerry on Friday. He texted me. I tried to suggest to him that they should cease their raiding actions, that we should keep the lines of communication open. I also reminded him that he should try to engage with members of the CLC executive. If we don’t talk, we can’t resolve anything.”

The battle is over Article 4 of the CLC constitution, which deals in part with workers’ right to choose to affiliate with a new union if their complaints about their old one cannot be resolved. Among other things, Dias has accused the CLC of not acting on members’ complaints.

According to Yussuff, all 46 Article 4 complaints that came to the CLC in the last six months of last year were resolved. He told me that in 99 per cent of the cases, disgruntled members want their grievances dealt with while remaining in their current union. That doesn’t mean Canadian union members never get to change horses.

“I have been president for over five years and five groups of workers have been granted the right to choose a new union,” Yussuff said. “Jerry knows these facts.”

But that doesn’t mean that things always run smoothly under Article 4 disputes, either. Unifor has seized on two cases of what it says is U.S.-based unions trampling on workers’ rights here in Canada.

One of them involved the actions of the Amalgamated Transit Union International, which abruptly locked out the Canadian local ATU union president, Bob Kinnear, and his entire executive, and placed the local in trusteeship. The U.S. union accused Kinnear of trying to disaffiliate without the support his own members.

Even the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have said that a healthy union movement contributes to a strong economy. Solidarity works.

Yussuff argues that in the case of the Amalgamated Transport Union, the CLC’s response was made more difficult by the direct intervention of Dias and Unifor.

“In the dispute with the ATU, it was sent to an investigator once the complaint was filed. But there was a lot of turmoil because Jerry interfered in the process. Jerry got himself into the complaint. He’s not allowed to do that as an outside affiliate. The recommendation of the investigator was not to grant justification to join a new union.”

Dias doesn’t deny wading into the ATU fray. Quite the opposite.

“You’re damned right I got involved in it. ATU went to the CLC under Article 4, and look what happened. Local President Bob Kinnear was fired along with all the other duly elected members of his executive. The American union trampled on workers’ rights in this country to choose their own union.

“The CLC doesn’t have the guts to stand up to U.S.-based unions.”

While ATU international officials accused Kinnear of “plotting in secret” to deliver Local 113’s membership to Unifor, Jerry Dias went to court. An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled that the American union had indeed “deprived” the Canadian membership of their duly elected leader.

In the second case, involving Unite Here Local 175, which represents hotel workers in Toronto and Mississauga, the dispute between Unifor and the CLC is more blatant. Dias insists there is absolutely no justification for saying it is okay to “wipe out” all of a Canadian union local’s executive, and to seize its assets — all for the high crime of wanting to choose its own union affiliation.

“The unfortunate thing is that this is not the Hassan I’ve known for thirty years. The old Hassan understood that people aren’t chattels. The new Hassan has just gone into survival mode with his allies in the U.S. unions.”

In fact, the CLC was never asked to become involved in the Unite Here complaint or to play mediator. So when Yussuff received a scorching letter from Dias about the situation in Local 175, it came as a “complete surprise.” The CLC president also made clear that there is more to the dispute at Unite Here Local 175 than meets the eye.

“You can’t really resolve the issue of Unite Here without knowing how this local got here. Two-thirds of the executive accused the president of racism and bullying. After they couldn’t solve the problem internally and locally, the international union became involved. It too failed to find a solution.

“What Jerry is not saying is that they, the local people, are the ones who asked the international union to come in. I understand the local president does not like the international union.”

It boils down to this: there has never been a time when a strong union movement has been more necessary for ordinary workers. With NAFTA on a wobbly footing, grotesque CEO salaries, stagnating workers’ pay, artificial intelligence and automation already here, and a full-scale war being prosecuted against organized labor in the United States, the union movement offers one way to achieve a better distribution of society’s wealth. Even the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have said that a healthy union movement contributes to a strong economy. Solidarity works.

There is enough of a personal relationship between Dias and Yussuff to get Unfor’s 315,000 members back into the fold with the CLC’s three-million-strong organization.

The problem is that Yusseff is Thomas Aquinas and Dias is Martin Luther. One wants to reform from within, obeying the rules in the meantime. The other has nailed his 95 Theses for reform to the church door and isn’t willing to wait any longer for change.

“I do not allow personalities or disagreement to affect my leadership,” Yussuff told me. “Although I am deeply disappointed in Unifor, I do not carry grudges. I have said to Jerry, who is a great union leader, to put his mind to how we resolve this matter. Sooner rather than later. But raiding one of our affiliates is not acceptable.”

Though he, too, has “nothing but respect” for Yussuff, Dias does not see what he is doing as ‘raiding’. Unifor, he said, is merely providing a home for people who have lost their union, in part because of the current rules that cover leaving one union for another.

“All of these people contacted us,” Dias told me. “We didn’t chase anybody or raid anybody. Hassan is not in a position to negotiate Unifor’s return to the CLC. The only way back is when Article 4 is meaningful. Unifor will never be party to abusing workers’ rights. If that’s the way things are, then we will remain on the outside.”

Which shows that Neil Sedaka was only half right. Making up is even harder to do.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

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The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.